The Practice of Score Rewriting: The Case Study of Bronius Kutavičius’s Opera-Poem Strazdas – žalias paukštis (Thrush, the Green Bird)

Abstract

Often composers, who themselves are not practising performers, render the music they compose in very complicated notation. To convey symbols, composers use numerological codes to mark metres and bars or sacrifice the practicality of the score and its clear reading in an attempt to convey a beautiful, symbolic graphic image in the score. In such cases, conductors should rewrite the score (along with the parts). Otherwise, the mastery of complicated and complex notation in the interpretation of the metro-rhythmic fabula will take up a lot of precious rehearsal time.
Scores of this kind are difficult for musicians to comprehend precisely because of the complete mismatch between the fixed metro-rhythmic fabula and the actually sounding pulsation fabula. For this reason, it is recommended to rewrite the metro-rhythmic fabula by organising the metro-rhythmic events in an easy-to-understand way. Of course, the conductor must respect the dramaturgical codes composed by the author and realise them with precision. Yet if we can achieve the same sound by rewriting everything in a simpler way without violating the original intention, this is the recommended practice. As a specific example, we provide the case study of Bronius Kutavičius’s opera-poem Strazdas – žalias paukštis (Thrush, the Green Bird).
Kutavičius used to write down the music he composed in graphic scores. They are very beautiful and deserve attention in their own right as works of visual art. However, graphic notation is quite tricky for performers in terms of practicality. The need to regroup metrotectonic structures in Kutavičius’s opera-poem Thrush, the Green Bird is one of the most important arguments for rewriting the score. From the very first bars of the entry of the first violins, we are confronted with several problematic issues: what value of the sound duration is identical to a conducting beat? how many smaller beat units does a beat contain? what are the support points of phrases?
Rewriting the scores allows the metro-rhythmic progression of events, which is particularly difficult to interpret, to be understood by the conductor and the musicians in a much simpler way. First of all, the necessity of rewriting arises when the pulsation fabula, as composed by the composer, does not correspond at all with the metro-rhythmic fabula fixed in the score at the actual moment of performance. The conductor’s interpretation of this type of a metro-rhythmic structure will only disturb the performers with his projection of the movements. Not only is it not enough for him or her to prepare the score for the performance (thus identifying their own movement progression with the pulsation fabula), but it is also necessary to rewrite the performers’ parts. Only then will two radically different pieces of information about the same opus to the performers be avoided: the conductor’s projection of the movements will be identical to the pulsation fabula and not identical to the part of the metro-rhythmic fabula. In the face of the problem of this nature, the practice of rewriting scores and parts is recommended and appreciated.